14 Years Of Obsessiveness: Ignore These Forums And Trial Account The Game Instead

You may be wondering if you should give Ultima Online a go; but you've looked at these forums and seen endless claims that the game should revert back to a "Pre-AoS/Renaissance" stat. What you need to know however is the historical truths behind these claims. Here they are in their simplist forms.

"Pre-Ren" means when there was just one world, which was dominated by the anti-social and the player killer. What they are asking for back is the time when they could kill people at will. And how popular was that play style? The record is clear.

The change of the game into two realms was in May 2000. Yes, that's 14 years ago. Ultima Online would continue to grow until it hit peak subscribers in July 2003. 3 years after the original supposed death of the game.

Indeed, dividing the rulesets actually saved the game. This is historical fact. 11 years on and it's still here. But you wouldn't know that because you're dealing with a tiny minority of posters who still, a decade and a half later, cannot accept that a small moment of happiness in their lives wasn't the end of the universe for everyone else.

And if you want full PvP, you can indeed still have it. Either on the Siege Perilous hardcore server or on the Felucca facet of any production shard. Except again the record is clear; the vast majority of players escaped the trash talkers and miner killers to Trammel and those rulesets have slowly died.

But the game itself is still here in 2014. And has continued with expansions and new content throughout all that time. Is it perfect? Not even close. But it has a consistent and contented, if somewhat small community despite all the bugs and tiny trickle of development now.

Would you as a modern MMO player find it fun? It's hard to say because it still is shaped by being the original trailblazer; much of the design of the game comes from an older mindset... These days they'd just have a simple "PvP on/off" toggle to solve the issue that some players just can't let go off today. But you don't have to listen to either me or them.

Just remember you'll be trapped in the Help chat whilst most people talk in General. And you can't go to Felucca on a Trial account because of the inability of some of that playerbase to control their urges to kill the game and drive away new players who'd keep it alive. Head for either Luna or West Britain Bank to find what community there is like. Join Stratics or UOForums, read UOGuide, and if you feel like you enjoy it, you can get into PvP later on a paid account.

Now watch the trolling that follows and remember; they're doing the same on the Shroud of the Avatar forums too. They just can't accept that UO 1997-2000 was the period which proved why all MMOs since shouldn't be like that at all, and now aren't... including UO itself. Even including Lord British with his latest game. You're dealing with dinosaurs that can't admit they're dead and their world is extinct.

So... Give Ultima Online a go for yourself, and perhaps you'll see why it's still here. Or not. Entirely up to you. But the game isn't going anywhere just yet, so you have time and space to get past all the insane attempts to re-write history here and decide for yourself.

Trolling, when you use such fallacies as "They just can't accept that UO 1997-2000 was the period which proved why all MMOs since shouldn't be like that at all, and now aren't... including UO itself."? That is kind of rich. UO was UO, where EQ was EQ, and Trammel/AoS were both attempts to superficially appeal to the EQ and Diablo players. Nor was UO Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot, etc. etc. etc.

Nobody but EA said that every game had to be exactly like each other. But hey, it makes for great material in your advertisement. Oh, and the "dominated" claim was kind of amusing, too.

The expansion of the audience of MMOs, particularly around 2003, wasn't because of any current success of the game but rather a legacy EA has since milked into the ground, as it has been going downhill since to the point where most F2P titles could actually claim an in-game population now whereas with UO it's fairly vacant but for a handful of servers. Except for a couple, most community sites which used to buzz for the 90s are now almost just on RSS feed mode. Those "fixes" didn't have lasting power to hold the communities that were once calling those servers home. Otherwise those "fixes" would have allowed the game to stay competent rather than soak the few remaining playing for $13/mo in a moden market, attracting little to no new players - and it doesn't have ANYTHING to do with the graphics.

In order to believe your own historic revision, you would have to ignore a lot of the rest of the industry. The point about Shroud of the Avatar is an interesting one - until you consider that the games are developing with a difference, and the reason why UO has "died" in a practical sense.

The in-game economy has been completely destroyed.

In most other games, gamers and the staff have their own way of dealing with gold/item-sellers. In UO, it has become an unspoken item on the features list in the earliest online form of Pay-To-Win; unless you are going to throw out some serious cash, do not plan on affording anything anytime soon. Yes, the trial is appealing because of the remaining mechanics of the game, but UO's economy now has the new player seriously underfunded for practically anything. Of course the newbie generally started out like that, but nowhere has the economic curve been so steep. There are some real oil barons on this thing, if you get my meaning.

Then there are the other folks, which supposed "fans" of the game have been throwing under the bus for sake of the griefers fallacy, We could do a comparison of active accounts, but with the amount of scripting allowed in the game to allow multiple accounts up to 10 at a time, it's little wonder the economy is a bit...skewed.

Check out some of those links www.uo.com links to as "fansites" and why they had left, despite multiple attempts to come back to the game. Many of the stories and threads are often the same BECAUSE of those missed social circles as the game because less the social aspect and more the "phat lewt" aspect than before. These included the good sellswords, the PKKs, and a lot of others who had more going than just through guild warring.

You couldn't do anything like, say, RP out anything as complex as Game of Thrones. Entire communities of multiple guilds in a player-run kingdom. Trading posts, taverns, etc.

The danger element? Pulse-rushing to comatose.

A lot more were affected than just the "PK GRIEFERS" and the social communities that had evolved were a bit...inconvenienced at the divide of not just a game mechanic - but a really poorly-planned division of the players and their communities, because it meant at some level that they would keep having to drop people from their roster because of the ideological issues it created.

After the splitting of the playerbase so that it really didn't seem to have much challenge anymore - remember, supposed "hard-core gamers" in mind here - some of the playerbase went shopping for other titles to shine in and indeed, play the hero killing the scum as advertised in this game's description.

As used on Steam to advertise it.

Don't get me wrong - UO IS A FUN GAME, and with the changes probably has become one of the best overglorified Facebook-style games around - but it also has a lot of problems as legacy from before, and that is readily apparent to be with their developers if their "communication" with their players seems to be as frequent as a Form 10-Q filing interval.

Also keep in mind that back then the game had sequels planned and was looking forward to more content. (Kind of like what some current players were hoping for with the announcement of BS Games.) Now, that is hardly certain at all. It would have been a great start and time for them to do a lot of...okay, what news in a month? Hello? Anyone there?

This move to Steam was obviously for gathering the attention of former players - except that it has come across as a "Hey, remember when we gave you a reason to quit the game? We don't care." Brilliant PR. Just lovely.

Then came along the EA Mythic account junkyard. This sucker hasn't been updated in AGES. UO itself saw a better and more recent update, it appears.

"It's the reason I didn't renew my accounts--two months of support tickets, still no way to update my CC info." Taylor, President and CEO of Stratics

I'm sorry...trust my CC info with that? I know online anywhere has problems, but that doesn't exactly inspire confidence. What the hell is that? Exactly how scarce is the support for this title now?

"You're dealing with dinosaurs that can't admit they're dead and their world is extinct."

Now I have been critical about BS Games and what appears to be their ability for development (particularly considering this uh...effort...to get this game on Steam), but that is a really harsh thing to call them after having been downsized multiple times. EA is "killing" their former studio after Dungeon Keeper, isn't that enough?

Sorry to burst your bubble Mandrake but all old games got some inflation since products and cash been racking up for years. Want an example? Join an old WoW server and see yourself. Trolling 24/7 on a game supposedly you dont care on, means you quit and got nothing to do but troll around it. My advice is find something fun(for you) to do rather than trolling games 24/7. To start with it wont reduce your boredom and not exactly a healthy person's act. As for Stratics CEO he should be directed here to see your posts and confirm if his name was misused. Missuse of someone's name and got legal extensions, you should know it. I am sure sooner or later someone will direct him here

Sorry to burst your bubble Mandrake but all old games got some inflation since products and cash been racking up for years. Want an example? Join an old WoW server and see yourself. Trolling 24/7 on a game supposedly you dont care on, means you quit and got nothing to do but troll around it.

Except that this inflation hit right after those points in the game, especially right after AoS, and has made the economy practically useless. We're not discussing merely Asheron's Call or Dark Age of Camelot inflation here. Unlike you, I've been a fan of this game. Fan, not sycophant, which you might want to check out the difference. What has been done to it in recent years has been even more shameful than the clumsy efforts a long time ago, and that is the importent thing to consider here.

If anyone follows your posts from your profile can find extensive trolling on a lot more spots and not just UO. My advice is find something fun(for you) to do rather than trolling games 24/7. To start with it wont reduce your boredom and not exactly a healthy person's act.

Miner Wars 2081 and Blast 'Em!...you're seriously going to consider calling out fraud and fraudulent claims "trolling"? Do you believe in ANY consumer rights? Do you also white knight for Sergey Titov while telling those calling out his problematic business practices "trolls"? Criticize the game and the claims made about the game = troll? Nah, you might want to check on your own codependent consumer tendencies. ;)

As for Stratics CEO he should be directed here to see your posts and confirm if his name was misused. Missuse of someone's name and got legal extensions, you should know it. I am sure sooner or later someone will direct him here

He already has been here. Again, you come in lately to things you really have little idea about. The context of that post was quite clear, along with BS Games' claims, as is the account management page of Mythic clearly garbage as it has been for years.

If ad hominem and that were all you had, why did you even bother posting?

You dont seem like a fan at all, fan of a private server? Maybe, but not on the game. More like a person who just cant resist trolling, cause he hasnt got anything constructive to do. Gamers play games, trolls just troll, simple isnt it? The fact you continue posting on a game that according to you isnt really worth yours or anyones time proves it

You dont seem like a fan at all, fan of a private server? Maybe, but not on the game.

Uh...yeah, I am a fan of the game.

You think I should just blindly ignore the problems with it over the years? That, again, is a sycophant. A fan is someone who...well, considering the game started out as "Multima" - a multiplayer form of Ultima - then would it seem like throwing away the created world would be something I would approve of? OSI - created worlds. I am not 100% a fan of what happened since the worlds were divided in a cheap fix with many still falling for the ages-old "jailhouse" excuses of anyone who wanted to PvP was a griefer, or that "PvP still exists in Felucca" while an economy doesn't exist anywhere in the game, but there were some neat addition since. A pity that not many of the communities are around to see them.

Why should I be approving of it 100%? With your tone, it's that I must love it 100% or GTFO, not that I could be a fan of when this game was truly a world of its own instead of what it turned into with design walls ingraining excuses. Then we have folks saying that such gameplay is dead, when it has moved to QUITE a number of other titles (such as EVE for one) that many of the decades-old hand-me-downs from the sycophants really start to sound really hilarious.

More like a person who just cant resist trolling, cause he hasnt got anything constructive to do. Gamers play games, trolls just troll, simple isnt it? The fact you continue posting on a game that according to you isnt really worth yours or anyones time proves it

There you go again with your personal ad hominem fantasies. I'd suggest that you reading next time, but there isn't a convenient wiki article for you to borrow from on that. ;)

Sure, let me take a 14 day trial to OSI when I can play an unlimited time for free on a better maintained server tailored to the time people still reference as what made UO a "trailblazer".

Your references to Seige being for "hardcore pvp" shows you aren't quite grasping what the posters wanting a classic server are getting at. Siege currently is for players who couldn't hack it pre-tram and now go there to "champion" the older eras.... It's so far off it's comparing apples to oranges.

I've been quietly lurking here for months, but one thing you said in particular I feel the need to critique:"Indeed, dividing the rulesets actually saved the game. This is historical fact."The subscription graph you linked as "proof", proves exactly the opposite. The mental leap that must have been taken to reach the conclusion you arrived at is frankly staggering.

Let's review:1997 to 2000 - One world with one ruleset, subscriptions to UO grow at a consistent rate and show no signs of slowing down at all.2000 - Trammel is introduced, subscriptions increase in one glut for a brief moment.2000 to 2003 - The subscription rate stagnates as older players leave as fast as new ones can join, existing players enjoy or try to enjoy what content there is but are concerned about what EA is doing to the MMO they love and hope this isn't a sign of things to come.2003 - The expansion pack Age of Shadows is released, another very brief rise in subscriptions followed quickly by many existing subscribers seeing their worst fears come true and realizing that UO is jumping the shark.2003 to 2014 - Players start to haemorrhage from the game in a downward spiral that is unlikely to now ever be reversed, reducing UO to a shadow of its former self - ironic given the name of the expansion that caused it. Some stubborn players hang on thanks to the game at the core being solid, even as all of the dressing added on top continues to choke the life out of a once beloved game.

A small note on Siege Perilous & PvP:Anybody be they child or adult can use the cardboard cut out scenes that you see occasionally at amusement parks or other places, poke their head through a hole and pretend to be a knight in shining armour, a princess, a premiership footballer or whatever else for a photograph.That is what Siege Perilous is - The poorest man's imitation and little more than people pretending to be PvPers. It is not what people were asking for at all.

I'm still looking for the supposed "At the rate they were losing accounts the game would have been Empty - literally - in less than 1 year." looniper claimed in the Comments section that se_latrevo_rebbie seems to also believe...that would be in 2004, right?

(The above line that looniper and many others believed was part of the fallacy EA spread around to "compete" with and try to pull subscriptions from EQ. But just like with every other time since UO has been changed to be like EQ, the Turd Dawn client to claim "3D", an "economy of contemporary Venezuela fix" by using Diablo stats on items to completely change the focus on character development and making the player economy even more useless, or kill boss/receive loot a bit after WoW's release with Mundane's Loot City, it ultimately resulted in the failure known as bailing subscriptions and NOT as a fix for lacking subscriptions. Every time EA has tried to make UO be "competitive" with other titles by trying to clone mechanics/features to get those players, it has resulted in the opposite of the intended effect - much like this asinine attempt to abuse Steam Greenlight for cheap advertising has only brought even more shame to the treatment of UO and lowered subscriptions even further.)